been looking at a Seat Leon today

it had a few car park dings which didn’t bother me, and the service book was last stamped in 2008, which again wasn’t that much of a big deal as the car had done very low milage since then (8000 verified by MOT’s)

the thing that bothered me though was the engine bay had been steam cleaned so it looked spotless

am I right in thinking it could hide a multitude of sins?

Last used car I bought I didn’t even look in the engine bay. It is all meaningless to me in there. When I eventually had to open it up it was immaculate in there. Didn’t bother me. You’d buy a used bike with a clean drive train, would you not? Surely a clean engine would better let you spot any leaks, cracks, etc?

Get out for a test drive in it, get back, open the bonnet and look for leaks. Seems like a decent way of spotting them to me.

Forget about the engine bay, this is a car that hasn’t had a service in nearly three years, but done 8000 miles. So that’s two (possibly three) winter’s worth of cold starts and short journeys, which will have seriously degraded the oil to the point where the engine will have suffered wear.

My advice – walk away, not worth the risk. There are plenty of other motors out there for sale.